That Sofa You Never Sat On
by under.that.sun
Summary: Luffy is a lonely ghost stuck in the apartment he died with no knowledge of what happened to his killer. Law is an orphan who has no one in his life until he meets Luffy. But even Luffy can't fill the void in Law's heart, he is merely a ghost. Shounen ai, AU, LawLu, ghost!Luffy.


**A.N. Alright, this story is bitter sweet and strange, may remind you of other fics/movies/books/mangas, but I just had this urge to write this bitter sweet thing while reading Tokyosketch's story 'A Pocketful of Magic' and you know her and the most often moods in her stories…**

 **Warnings: AU, sad and a tear jerker, one shot, ghost, shounen ai – implied romantic relationship between men or one sided love.**

 **Summary: Luffy is a lonely ghost stuck in the apartment he died with no knowledge of what happened to his killer. Law is an orphan who has no one in his life until he meets Luffy. But even Luffy can't fill the void in Law's heart, he is merely a ghost.**

 **Word count: 4 582**

 _That Sofa You Never Sat On_

The small one room apartment Law rented was the strangest thing ever. The old mean lady who rented it said something about Law not lasting long and signed only a month old contract, said if he manages through the moth they can speak again. He's not sure what she means but the rent is quite small and fits right into his budget so he doesn't even think about moving out.

The first several days flies by as he unpacks his stuff, his bedroom/living room is filled up with books. Most of them are for his studies, he bought them from second hand shop and others he received for free from an old acquaintance after a library was flooded. Law doesn't have much money, being orphan and all and the scholarship he receives barely helps him pay the rent. Luckily Law has it easier than most with studies being easy for him so he spends his non study time working.

He has a shift at a corner store which works 24/7, Law has the evening shift, from six to closing time and has to close the shop. Because of that his sleeping schedule is quite over the place with him receiving only five hours sleep every night, his university is an hour away from the place he lives so he has to get up at six o'clock to get on time.

Adding up all that it's no wonder it takes three days to notice such obvious thing.

There's a ghost in his apartment.

His name is Luffy and he's been dead for five years, Law is actually younger than him. He met the ghost in the most weird ways possible, after Law got back to work he went straight for shower, five minutes later when he was walking out from the match box sized room he ran straight into the ghost. The transparent, an inch from the ground floating figure was standing (floating) right in front of the door staring at it with narrowed eyes, when the door opened he jumped back startled.

"Gods damn it! Don't startle a guy like that!"

The only thing Law could do was blink and rub his eyes; he was getting delirious from exhaustion it seemed. Ignoring the figure he went straight to bed thanking and deities possible that tomorrow was Saturday – meaning no lectures and he could sleep in.

"Hey! Don't just ignore me!" Shouted the offended ghost. "I wanted to introduce myself!"

Law closed his eyes ignoring the protests and sighed to himself; maybe it was just an exhausted dream?

It wasn't.

Next morning after waking up around midday the first thing he saw as he got out of bed was a pouting ghost crouched on the pile where Law left his clothes last night. "Why are you still here?"

The ghost pouted. "I live here you meanie. I kind of can't get out so I'm your roommate."

Law closed his eyes and sighed. Of course, having a ghost in his apartment would happen only to him, seeing as it was barely out of his teens and completely harmless didn't get his mood up. Scratching his stomach Law went to the tiny kitchen to brew himself some coffee, he needed it to wake up.

While the student is making himself a toast in a pan (he can't afford a toaster) the ghost rambles about himself. He introduces himself and stares at Law with those piercing see-through eyes until Law introduces himself. After that it seems like a tap was turned on and there was no off knob.

"Like for two years after I died no one lived here, it was quite lonely, but I slept over like half a year one time so time flew by quickly. Then, some dude moved in, he looked quite scary, like he was in a gang or something so I didn't bother him like for a week or so, then I introduced myself and he freaked out! He started putting up these strange things around apartment and chanting some weird stuff. It probably worked because after a while he moved out.

After that some weird dudes with cameras lounged around, but I didn't like them so I ignored them, for couple of months it was empty again until some girl moved out. She didn't even last a week. After that new people came, quickly moved out and the place was empty until quite soon someone new moved in."

"Alright." Law slowly chews on his toast sipping his dark coffee and wondering why the hell he has to listen to this.

"I'm so glad you didn't freak out after you saw me! It's been a while since I saw humans." Ah; Law thinks; he's probably been lonely, not having anyone talk to or listen him… "What year is it? I kind of lost count after three."

"Two fiteen."

Luffy's eyes widen. "Two thousand fifteen? Really? So the apocalypse on two twelve didn't happen?" Law shakes his head. "Huh, so I've been dead for five years. That's a lot."

For a moment the ghost looks put out, he looks down at his lap, Law's not sure how but the other male is sitting on (more like floating an inch above) a chair at the other side of the tiny, round, cheap plastic table. Soon the moment is broken and the ghost is all smiles again. He babbles something inconsequential and the university students ignores him completely.

It takes half an hour for Luffy to understand what the constant silent means, but once Law sits down in front of his crappy table in his bedroom with his laptop in front of him and stack of medical books next to him and starts working on homework assignments he seems to understand. His face falls and he floats out of the room, Law is not sure where the ghost went as he remember him telling he can't leave the apartment but Law ignores the pang of guilt he feels about being so cold to the poor guy and starts working. He had no time to befriend ghosts.

Sunday comes and goes with Law continuing to work on homework without a sight of Luffy. When Monday comes and there's still no sight of the young ghost Law gulps down guilt and goes off to the lectures; he will be a little bit nicer to the ghost next time he sees him, that won't hurt.

It's Tuesday night when Law sees the ghost that haunts his apartment, Luffy seems quite sleepy and yawns quite a lot, do ghost sleep? Raising an eyebrow Law tries nonchalantly inquire where the other male had been. "So, wha you've been doing past four days?"

Luffy looks quite surprised as he stretches. "Four? Wow, that's a lot of sleep, sorry, I was sleeping." He points to the sofa that lounges in the small, cramped corridor from door to kitchen, Law's not even sure what it's there for. "I always sleep on it, but when I sleep I can't control my body so fall through the sofa and sleep inside of it."

"Is that you can sit?"

Luffy nods and look at his sandal covered feet that are floating above ground. "If I touch surfaces I go through them, it took a lot of practice to be able move properly."

Law nods and moves towards his bed, it is getting closer to one am after all. "Good night Luffy." He says as he gets into his bed."

"Good night Law." The ghost looks strangely proud of himself at these words, small, proud smile on his face.

Law closes his eyes, but when after a moment he opens them Luffy is still there, standing in the same spot with the same expression. "Um, you can go now."

"Go?" Luffy looks confused. "Where?"

Law sighs. "Go do something, it's creepy knowing you watch me as I try to fall asleep."

Luffy slaps his forehead. "Ooooh! Sorry, I forgot proper manners, thanks for reminding… but… I don't know what to do."

The tall male thinks; it's true, what can a ghost do? What did Luffy used to do before? "Hmmm, well this is suspicious neighborhood, you could try to look through the window and report if anything out of order happens, tell me what people I should avoid."

Luffy nods his transparent head and floats to the kitchen, Law sighs with relief and falls into his pillow once more ready for the night to take him away.

It takes another weekend for them to meet properly again. Law is once again working on his homework, but this time he's also listening to Luffy's babbling and answering his questions about what he's doing and what specific terms mean.

"I'm not going anywhere on Wednesday because professor will be on a trip, do you want to watch a movie?"

Luffy's face lights up and he looks likes if he could he would jump and hug Law to death. "Hell yes! It's been so long since I saw one! This place doesn't have TV so I could never sneak glance or anything! I want to see some good, new, popular movie, would that be okay?"

The taller male looks at those puppy dog eyes Luffy is displaying and thinks how ghost should not be able to do that. He sighs and nods. "Sure, I will set something to download, and you better don't go sleeping for another four days if you want to see it."

Luffy nods dutifully. "I promise!" Huge smile blooms on his face. "It's going to be awesome!"

Wednesday comes rolling and the medic student is quite surprised how fun it is to watch something as stupid as a movie with a ghost. It doesn't take him long to download another one and fit in time in his tight schedule to watch it. Instead of relaxing during his breaks at work now Law makes a head start for his homework which gives him extra free time in the weekend and for Luffy's delighted surprise they watch another action packed thriller.

On Sunday Luffy looks terribly tired and yawns quite a lot. By the end of the day Law is way too curious to leave it be, but when he's about to ask what it's about Luffy falls on the sofa and sinks in it as he falls asleep. Law watches the phenomenon with interest and decides to ask the ghost about the sleeping thing, were ghosts supposed to be sleeping?

Luffy sleeps for almost a week and wakes up on Sunday morning, during that week Law understand he got used to the ghost's constant rambling and the silence is weighting him down. He tries to listen to music but it just annoys him. Law hates to admit it but he feels a bit lonely, he got used to having a constant presence while he did his work or when he ate breakfast in mornings. Luffy didn't disappear anywhere, now that he knew where to look Law could slight bluish tint under the sofa of Luffy's back, but he couldn't speak to the ghost. Even though Luffy was the one who always did the talking…

When they're watching Kung Fu Panda 2 (Luffy's in love with animated movies about fighting) Law realizes how much he enjoys Luffy's company and even though it annoys him to know he's getting tied to someone, he understands he won't be able to do anything about Luffy's likeable character.

It takes a month for the med student to understand he's getting a crush on his ghost. Law always knew he was gay, but he never actually had feelings for anyone before, found someone attractive – yes, a crush? Never. But here he was, getting romantic feelings about someone who was already dead, just his luck.

Feeling weird and pathetic as the only person his heart ever found good enough is no longer on this realm Law embraces his new feelings. He works extra hard on his assignments and spends even more time with Luffy. The young ghost loves it and they end up on catching up with all new animated movies that came out in recent five years quite quickly.

Several times Trafalgar ends up trying to unconsciously touch Luffy, like put his arm next to Luffy's shoulders, or brush their knees together but ends up brushing through nothing. At those moments his heart seems like a bottomless pit of nothing because the knowledge of never showing his affection roots deep into his brain.

In the end even from all the satisfaction he gets from hearing Luffy laugh and just generally be around him, little by little his mood becomes sour.

It's nearing winter vacation when Luffy finally points it out. "You look so unhappy recently, are you missing your family because of Christmas?"

Law's lips form a grimace as he realizes Luffy doesn't know about his family situation. "I'm an orphan, my parents and little sister died in a fire when I was about six. I don't remember much about them and because I didn't have any relatives that could take me in I grew up in orphanage. There's no one for me to miss."

Luffy floats right in front of Law's face, his expression sad and eyes shining with what seemed like concern. "Is that why you're sad? You wish you had someone?"

Law snorts. "No, I don't care that much about holidays except for the vacation from university I'm getting."

The bluish eyes stare at Law and the older man wonders what color they were before Luffy died. "Then why are you so sad?"

"Because you're dead." He states.

The roundish face falls and Luffy closes his eyes with a painful face. "Don't be, I came to face the reality and no longer crave to be alive even if it hurts to see the living world." Luffy falls silent, but Law's attention is fully on him; Luffy never shared his death story. "I lived here before you know, that's why I'm tied to this place, I died here too, that's why no one lived here for a couple of years. I had just finished high school, I had a wish to move out from my grandpa's house and start living on my own away from my brothers' codling. They had quite a brother complex about my safety.

As you noticed I'm not the brightest of people so I had no wish to go to college or university, I planned on starting to work as soon as I could. I wanted to go out there and do something. I was living here for a month, working part time in a warehouse, moving stuff, while I worked there I looked for a more serious job, I found some courses to help me become an event manager and took them in the morning while I worked on afternoons until ten pm."

Luffy's eyes are still closed, but his face is twisted in anguish, he looks like he's about to cry.

"The warehouses where in a shady part of the city so my brothers usually came to pick me up, it was nice of them, but I was getting annoyed of them always treating me like a small kid. So I forbid them from picking me up and started walking home instead. It was probably a week later when while walking home I felt really weird."

A small, sob like sound leaves Luffy's mouth and Law has half a heart to do something, anything to make Luffy stop telling the story, but he's too curious.

"When I was almost at my home I understood I was being followed. I was literally by the apartment building so I just ran into it and to my apartment." Luffy gulps. "I thought I was safe when I closed and locked the door, I turned on the music to calm down my fanatically beating heart. Soon I calmed down and went to kitchen to get a snack. Suddenly I heard something rustling by my door so I went to check."

Luffy's voice breaks down and Law can hear the hurt in it when the other male starts talking again. "There's was some man by the door, he broke in my apartment so I shouted at him, I didn't see him from close because I ran at him getting ready to fight. I'm not some weakling after all, I had my martial arts classes. But he seemed ready for it, because he bashed my head into wall immediately when I got close enough and then when I fell on the ground he repeatedly did that with the door. I lost consciousness then and probably bled out from my head wound because I never woke up, only later found myself here, as a ghost."

"Did they catch that bastard?"

Luffy shrugs. "I don't know. When I appeared here it was a moth after my death, all my stuff was already taken and no one came here."

"Do you want me to find out what happened?"

Luffy's eyes open and he starts sobbing loudly, tears, real tears rolling down his transparent cheeks. "I don't know!"

Luffy falls towards Law and the man opens up his arms to hug the small ghost but Luffy only falls through Law's body and at that moment Law feels like he wants to cry too. Here, in front of him is the person he cares about most and he can't even comfort him.

The smaller male seems to be crying even harder because of that and Law has to do everything he can to get himself together and start comforting Luffy with words. It takes longer than it would have if he was able to hug him, but Law manages to calm down his ghost. He doesn't ask anything about Luffy's death anymore and they don't mention it, but for another couple of days the sorrow mood in the apartment is so depressingly thick you could cut through it with a knife.

Luckily it passes and everything seemingly falls back to how it was, but deep in Law's mind it doesn't stop bothering him, curiosity nagging him in the back of his head. Two weeks pass before Law gives in it and during his lunch break between lectures he starts googling his apartment and what happened in it. It takes couple days-worth of research to find the article.

Even the article around the event is as terrible as Luffy said it was even if it's written so thoughtlessly. It says that the suspect was caught but nothing more about what actually happened to the suspect. It takes another couple of days for Law to think of a way to actually find out what happened. He needs to find Luffy's brothers.

It actually takes months to track them down because Law didn't even know Luffy's last name and he didn't have that much time for investigation, doing everything he could during that one hour of his lunch. Luckily from everything Luffy said about his brothers he knows their names are Ace and Sabo, so when Law finally finds Luffy's graduation picture with two slightly older boys saying it's Luffy with Sabo and Ace he knows he found the right people.

Not surprisingly Law doesn't find where either of them live, but surprisingly he finds Luffy's death documents and place he's buried in. One weekend when Luffy's in one of his strangely long naps (when Law finally asked about that Luffy said doesn't know why he can sleep or why he needs to, he said it just feels right) Law goes to the cemetery and finds Luffy's grave.

Looking at the well-kept grave with a bouquet of flowers on it Law's heart is as good as broken because he's standing in front of proof that the person he loves is really, surely dead.

Law makes an easy plan that he's not sure if will work. He found out on which day is Luffy's birthday and he decided on that day to camp out by Luffy's grave until one of his brothers, friends or other relatives showed up as the day was couple of weeks away. Someone had to come on his birthday judging by the care Luffy talked about them.

The birthday is on Tuesday and Law for the first time in the whole year skips his lectures and takes an extra day off work to spend the whole day in the cemetery. Just when he was about to lose all hope, around six o'clock in the evening a man with chin long blond, wavy hair and a big burn scar on the left side his face shows up. Although in the pictures he didn't have the scar Law recognizes the man as Sabo, Luffy's older brother.

When he reaches the spot where Law is sitting in front of the grave he frowns at the tall male. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Law scratches his chin and doubts his idea of coming there, he didn't think out properly what he would say to make them believe that Luffy is a ghost. "Ummm, well, it may be sound weird but I've been waiting for you." Realizing how creepy it sounded he rushed to correct himself. "Well, not you specifically, but anyone who knew Luffy personally."

Sabo's eyes narrow. "Luffy? You knew my younger brother? I don't remember you and I knew all Luffy's friends."

Trafalgar is lost at what to say again; hopefully if he says the truth he won't receive a fist in his face. "Well, I'm a more recent friend." The distrust in Sabo's face only deepens. "Well, gosh, it sounds weird even in my head… but I met his ghost, well, more like I live with his ghost."

The blond doesn't look like he believes it and actually looks quite furious. "Listen, I don't need any charlatans trying to convince me they can make me hear my brother gain, get lost before I call police."

"Two thousand and nine, Christmas, Luffy pulled a prank on you, he put a mistletoe above the doorway and when your current boyfriend Marco came, as always first, Luffy pointed out the mistletoe and made you two kiss while he took out a camera and took a lot of photos, he made a bunch of copies with your printer and hid it around your room and house where anyone, especially you could find it. Two thousand and eight, April's Fool's Day, he made everyone believe a sparrow flew into his room through the window and made a nest on his bed and that's why he can't walk into his room." Seeing Sabo's astonished face Law raises an eyebrow. "Should I continue or do you believe I've met Luffy?"

Sabo sighs and his face looks torn, Law feels bad for reminding the man of those probably bitter sweet memories, but he needs to convince him to believe him. "No, that's definitely enough. What do you want from me?"

"I want you to meet and talk with Luffy."

"What?"

"For five years he has been bound to the apartment he died in. He needs to hear how his killer ended up, I think he needs to meet you not to be torn by guilt. He feels like it was his fault for not trusting you and making you and Ace looks like too overbearing."

The blond nods slowly. He looks down at the grave they're standing in front and puts the bouquet of flowers he brought with himself down on the ground. "Alright, come, we need to figure out a date and this is not the place to talk about it."

They talk for a bit by Sabo's car and end up deciding that on Saturday, ten o'clock Sabo and Ace will come over to meet Luffy.

The week couldn't probably be any slower and Law's quite nervous, Luffy notices but thankfully doesn't ask about it.

Once the weekend finally comes Law wakes up at seven am and doesn't manage to get a minute more of sleep. Instead he cleans his apartment while Luffy watches him with guarded eyes, they don't talk until few minutes until ten the doorbell rings. Luffy looks worried while Law nervously hurries to open the door.

Thankfully the smaller male stays in the bedroom/living room while Law opens the door and only when the other two males take off their shoes and coats does he speak with slightly cracking voice. "Luffy, can you help me out a bit?"

Luffy floats into the small corridor. "How could I he-"

He freezes when he sees the two males standing in front of him. The two brothers hold blank faces and after a moment start crying. Feeling uncomfortable at witnessing such thing Law turns around and lets the brothers reunite. Five minutes later the four of them are cramped up in the small room and even though Ace and Sabo seem overjoyed to see their brother there's no smiles there.

Without being asked to the two brothers tell their side of the story, their pain, the guy who did that to Luffy is rotting behind bars for as long as he's alive and those news take a huge weight of Luffy's shoulders. They start talking about themselves and their current lives and it takes a while for Law to notice that Luffy seems more transparent that usual.

"Luffy-" Law chokes out. "Why are you, why are you more see through than usual?"

Luffy looks down at his hands and how barely visible he is, he looks up at Law with panic in his eyes. "Law." He whispers chocking on his tears which start rolling down his cheeks. "I think I'm moving on."

Quickly scrambling from his seat towards where Luffy floated above a simple stool Law falls down in front of the ghost, tears finally streaming down his face. "No! No no no no NO!" Law tries grabbing Luffy's barely visible hands without any success. "Luffy!"

Luffy is looking at Law with pain in his eyes and Law knows he doesn't really want to go, to leave Law, because Law knows that Luffy cares about him much more than for a normal friend. But their enemy was death and it had already separated them before they even met, only taunting them with what could have been by letting them meet like this. Law is cursing and with all the tears in his eyes he can barely see Luffy's disappearing form.

"I'm sorry Law." He whispers and disappears from existence.

Trafalgar collapses on the stool and lets all the pain out. He feels a strong hand land on his shoulder and he sobs even harder, because he wanted what he could never had, because he never had a chance and never made any happy memories to live for. He had nothing except for knowledge that he had someone dear in his life for a while. He curses himself for bring Luffy's brothers while feeling guilty for doing that because Luffy deserved a chance to move on, he did not belong in this plane of existence.

It takes a while for Law to understand that he's enveloped in a big hug from Ace and Sabo and it doesn't help at all to know that they understand him, it doesn't help at all.

That summer Law quits university and moves out of his apartment, the only noticeable thing he takes with himself is that sofa Luffy used to sleep in.

 **A.N. It seems like I finally figured out how to write angst. Ups.**


End file.
